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Design007-Jan2018

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JANUARY 2018 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 105
Best of all, Jack never abandoned me dur-
ing this whole process. He didn't transfer me
over to someone else when he didn't know all
the answers, instead he researched the issue to
get me the correct information. He also stayed
with me even when he could no longer help
and another team had to be called in to install
the new furnace. Jack has continued to check
on us and has promised to come over after the
installation to make sure that we have been
well taken care of.
You've probably been on the phone trying to
get support for a consumer product problem
before, and had them transfer you from per-
son to person to person. Well, your customers
and your co-workers don't like that anymore
than you do. The key is to maintain the trust
that you have been building with the person
that you are working with, and that trust isn't
helped by dumping them over to someone else.
There were many times when I was supporting
an EDA customer that I wanted to give up, but I
didn't because I knew that the customer might
interpret this as abandonment. So I would roll
up my sleeves and stick with the problem and
the customer until we got it figured out and
they were up and running again.
When you are working with others, whether
they are customers or your co-workers,
remember that they came to you for help for a
reason. You may not have all the answers, but
you are probably their lifeline and they need
your help. So put them at ease, guide them
through the problem, and don't leave them
hanging. If the people that you are helping are
your customers, you've just improved your
odds of retaining them as customers in the
future. If they are co-workers, you will help to
build and maintain a solid relationship built
on trust.
I would write more about this, but my fin-
gers are freezing, so it's time to find some fat
comfy gloves. See you next month!
DESIGN007
Tim Haag is a consultant based
in Portland, Oregon.
Going Organic
Organic solar cells could be an inexpensive and
versatile alternative to inorganic solar cells. How-
ever, their low efficiencies and limited lifetimes cur-
rently render them impractical for commercial use.
Using Argonne's Advanced Photon Source (APS),
a DOE Office of Science User Facility, researchers
analyzed how organic solar cells' crystal structures
develop as they are produced under different condi-
tions.
The scientists focused on the photoactive layer
of the cell, built from thin films that absorb energy
from sunlight and then convert that energy into elec-
tric current. The researchers produced the films via
spin coating, a widely used process for film fabrica-
tion in research labs.
"It was the stability and reproducibility of this
specific spin-coating setup that allowed this study
to happen," said Northwestern graduate student Eric
Manley, first author of the study published Oct. 9 in
Advanced Materials.
The study's most significant discovery, made
possible by the new experimental setup, was how
certain additives can significantly affect both the
time it takes for the film's structure to stop chang-
ing and the intermediate structures the film adopts
during evolution.
"We hope this will pave the way to making these
cells more viable for everyday applications," said
Joseph Strzalka, physicist and member of the Time-
Resolved Research group within Argonne's X-Ray
Sciences division.